January Industry News Round Up

This months round-up is decidedly social media focused. Facebook Inc has launched some minor and some MAJOR updates this month to Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Let's look at what's been going on.

WhatsApp for businesses.

Free and aimed at smaller businesses, the WhatsApp Business App has been launched in the UK and is designed to help in an ever connecting and communicating world – allowing customers to message business owners, 24 hours a day, and 7 days a week off their phone.

Businesses will have an official green checkmark to show they are a “confirmed account,” by approving the account with the business phone number. The app provides quick replies, fast answers to frequently asked questions, greeting messages and away from work messages.

Expected to develop further, Whatsapp Business App will branch out to a global market, providing customers with greater accessibility to big or small companies, however, this isn’t expected soon.

Insta-stalkey

Have you heard about Instagram’s latest update?

Instagram has introduced “last active,” which enables your followers to see when the last time you were logged on was. Just another way for people to see when you were last on your phone and ask why you haven't replied to them yet. However, there is a way to revert back to the old ways.

Instagram stories on WhatsApp

I'm yet to see this, but, there have been sightings of Instagram Stories on WhatsApp according to Techcrunch.

Facebook (who owns Instagram and Whatsapp) is currently trialling a cross-posting option - encouraging people to upload pictures, like Snapchat stories but for WhatsApp.

So what are the benefits to us? Despite being able to upload a picture onto multiple platforms there seem to be few advantages. However, from Zuckerberg's point of view, it is encouraging people to use as many of his platforms for as long as possible and lessen the need for others.

Facebook ground-zero

The biggest update (and a potential blow to Facebook advertisers) was a release from Facebook dropping a bombshell about reducing the organic reach of pages.

Mark Zuckerberg said:

"One of our big focus areas for 2018 is making sure the time we all spend on Facebook is time well spent.

We built Facebook to help people stay connected and bring us closer together with the people that matter to us. That's why we've always put friends and family at the core of the experience. Research shows that strengthening our relationships improves our well-being and happiness.

But recently we've gotten feedback from our community that public content - posts from businesses, brands and media - is crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other...

...As we roll this out, you'll see less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media. And the public content you see more will be held to the same standard -- it should encourage meaningful interactions between people."

There has already been a lot of backlash mentioning Facebook's interests being charging companies rather than creating a feed of 'meaningful posts from friends and family'. Personally, I don't think there is any need to panic, it's still going to be one of the most popular networks and a good source of business, but we'll keep you updated over time (or feel free to give us a call if you want to talk about it).

And finally, just for fun...

Donald Trump is known for being very open on social media, but who knew he was also at it behind the scenes too.

Spotted on some Trump administration and GOP websites, there is hidden code making references to Obama’s golf performance. “Oops! Something went wrong. Unlike Obama, we are working to fix the problem… and not on the golf course,” when an error appeared.

However, there appears to be an error within the error. Was this never meant to be seen?